Showing results by publisher "HarperCollins" in Literature & Fiction

Billie fled her Yorkshire upbringing to pursue her dreams of finding a cure for the illness which killed her mother, yet when her father gets sick, she must return home to save the farm. But the transition from city girl to country lass isn’t easy, not least because leaving London means leaving her relationship with Joely Chevalier, French pharmaceutical femme fatale, just as it was heating up. And when she gets to Yorkshire, Billie’s shocked to discover the family dairy farm is in dire straits.

Darkness comes to Sidmouth, when, unable to cope after a devastating tragedy, late-night radio talk show host Edward Temmis is let go from his beloved job. Cast adrift, his outlook is bleak – until he meets Stevie, whose grandmother, a devoted listener, died in a suspicious fire last year. Well, nobody hurts his listeners and helping Stevie might just give him the purpose he needs. When their investigation stalls, they enlist local estate agent Kim, with whom Edward had a doomed fling last year. Working together, they discover Stevie’s grandmother wasn’t the only one of his listeners targeted.

When Dave wakes up in his own personal purgatory (St Ives Youth Hostel circa 1992), he’s shocked to discover he’s dead. And worse – he was murdered. Heaven doesn’t know who did it so with the help of two rogue angels, Dave must uncover the truth. As divine forces from both sides start to play the game, can Dave get out of this alive? Or at the very least, with his soul intact?

Set in Trinidad, and told with wry humour and irresistible wit, One Year of Ugly is a story of family, first love and finding home. When their beloved Aunt Celia dies, Yola and her family discover she had been keeping a huge secret – she was seriously in debt to local criminal, Ugly, and they must do his bidding until the debt is cleared. So far, so ugly. And then Ugly’s distracting gorgeous right-hand man Román arrives on the scene, and Yola just can't help herself. Could this wildly inappropriate (and very messy) romance be the perfect antidote?

All Shelley wanted on her hen weekend was to enjoy three days of sun, sea and sangria. But instead of being surrounded by the A-team of her closest friends, she somehow ends up with a Golden Girls-meets-the-Spice Girls B-list that includes her mother, a rebellious teenager and a best mate ‘on the verge’. The squabbling starts at the airport, and on arrival in Spain, Shelley barely has time to unpack her suitcase before getting an unwanted text—one that throws her wedding into doubt.

Everyone craves retirement from the Civil Service, don’t they? That time for an ageing patriarch to enjoy the fruits of a well-earned pension and the respect of his family; maybe even to indulge in a love of music halls and metropolitan life. If only people would listen and do as they were told… His fourth son William, the long-suffering narrator, is the constant butt of his father’s jokes and victim of his brother’s indifference. But as death, divorce and other darker dramas follow, father and son slowly establish a strange harmony.

Rebecca is 42, has a beautiful child and a wonderful husband. But she just hasn’t been feeling herself recently.... Rebecca thinks a great night out should involve a packet of Marlboros, six double vodkas and snogging a colleague. Not gormlessly drinking a zero-alcohol No-hito while Instagramming a vegan chicken wing. Rebecca wants to ride on a Harley-Davidson, crowd surf till dawn, then collapse in a heap after swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels...not sit in a soul-destroying meeting surrounded by 'blue sky thinking' and men half her age who interrupt all the time.

Vicky Turnbull has never regretted giving up her career for family life in the suburbs. And apart from being outstandingly good at paintball, no one would ever know that in a past life she was an undercover spy and has been trained to kill a man with her bare hands. Not even her husband and certainly not the other mums at the school gate. But beneath the school runs and bake sales, Vicky had never quite said goodbye to the past.

After a morning that starts with a terrible migraine, an accidentally strong concoction of painkillers, and a bump on the head, Clover Hendry is not quite herself. And as she walks out of work at 9.47am, for once Clover isn’t worrying about the consequences. For once, she’s going to live for herself. . . if only for a day. Full of a joyful recklessness, Clover Hendry is taking the day off. But will her new-found freedom uncover long-buried secrets?

Sue Young has never asked for much apart from a quiet life. She’s always been happy with her call centre job and dinner on the table at six o'clock. That was until a tragedy tore her tranquility into little shreds. With her life in tatters, Sue is persuaded to join a charity cycle ride led by morning TV’s Kath Fuller, who is having a crisis of her own, and Sue’s self-appointed support crew are struggling with their own issues.

After 15 years of trying to be the perfect wife, maybe Charlotte’s best friends from uni - Freya, Emily and Izzy - can still glimpse the woman she’d once set out to be. Freya is up for it. Could a powwow with her yesteryear besties helps her knock some sense into her useless husband? Emily’s hiding her own crisis from her parents, colleagues and now, her mates.